Conventionally, when a document (data) such as a bill or a greeting letter that is configured based on a form having therein a title, various items to be input, etc., of the document that are fixed, is created using office-use application software such as, for example, word processor software, spreadsheet software, or presentation software, fixed form data (a so-call template) that is prepared in advance and that constitutes a fixed form is used for the purpose of facilitating simplification of the creating work.
A user inputs text data such as characters and values that correspond to the various items to be input in the fixed form data, based on the fixed form data and, thereby, the user may easily create fixed form document data (hereinafter, “document data”).
In the case where fixed form data is updated (renewed to that of an upgraded version) due to increase of the number of items to be input of the fixed form data, etc., even when document data is created and is printed based on the existing fixed form data, the creation and the printing of the document data are wasted because the document data is not adapted to the latest fixed form.
A method has been proposed of automatically correcting document data even when the document data is created based on fixed form data that exists before its updating, such that the document data is adapted to the updated fixed form data (see, e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-76228).
However, when the above automatic correcting method is executed by a server apparatus, the creating process of the document data executed on a PC (Personal Computer) has to be always monitored and, therefore, a problem has risen that the processing load is increased.
Especially, an unnecessary processing load is imposed on the server apparatus and the PC because the above monitoring process is executed even when the fixed form data is not updated.
In the above case, it is considered to be preferable that whether the version of the fixed form data included in the document data is the latest version may be checked, for example, before printing of the document data created.